1) As you may already now, in Combustion you can change the speed of a clip, but it is always at a FIXED RATE.
Many people have asked for the ability to dynamically change the clip speed, esentially ramping the speed based on a curve.
Up to now, this has been achieved by either buying an optional plug-in, of which there are two available on the market, or editing the clip outside of combustion in another software that supports speed ramping, such as Sony Vegas (formally known as Sonic Foundry Vegas.)

NOW, there is another choice, and it is FREE !

An ambitious Combustion Artist/Programmer in Ohio has written their own "Re-Timer" speed utility for Combustion (Windows ONLY) and they have generously offered to shared it with all as a free download... This utility offers some frame mixing and ghosting abilities and their website has a screen shot showing the Plug-In user interface along with with basic descriptions and instructions.
Download and try out the plug-in here: http://www.jamination.com/combustiondev.htm
Special Thanks go out to Phil Harbath and Jamination Productions, Inc. of Columbus, Ohio for their benevolence...

2) Here's a very handy free utility for browsing partilce outside of Combustion...... WonderTouch, the creator of Particle plug-in to Combustion v2 and v3, as well as the stand-alone version Particle Illusion Version 2 and the newest v3, has released an update of their free utility called ShowIEL. ShowIEL v3.1 allows users to directly browse a particle library, all outside of Combustion, so that one can quickly search to find a particular particle effect. ShowIEL v3.1 is FREE and available for the MAC and the PC platform, and will allow you to browse *.IEL, *.ELC and *.IL3 libraries. Download this free utility at: http://www.wondertouch.com/showiel.asp
In summary, within the particle libraries, there are three types of file extensions and ShoeIEL preview them all:.
*.IEL (older Illusion Emitter Library)
*.ELC (Emitter Library Combustion) - used ONLY for Combustion v2 & Cv3
*.IL3 (ONLY for Particle Illusion V3 - NOT compatible in Combustion v3)
Note the following:
--When you load an older IEL library into Combustion v2 or v3, it automatically gets converted to a ELC.
--Combustion v2 and v3 will NOT ACCEPT Particle Illusion v3 libraries!

Want More Particles ??? Using pre-created particles in Combustion is fast, easy and fun and can add a unique touch to any Combustion composition. As you may already know, you can download additional FREE particle libraries from Wondertouch.
Just go to: http://www.wondertouch.com/downloads.asp
Note that the relevant Particle Libraries you download should be dated AFTER January 2002, since most of the libraries BEFORE that date are already included with the release of Combustion v2. This includes effects such as Abstract, Explosions, Natural, etc. These free libraries have been submitted by different users and have varied and different looks. Therefore, the libraries tend to be very disorganized, and very often don't exactly fit what you are looking for. However, if you search through them, you can find some interesting and unique effects.
To Install them to Combustion v2, first download a library. Next, simply use the "Load Library" button in Combustion. Or, you can drop the Illusion library file into the "Particle Libraries" folder in combustion's program folder and then restart combustion. The new library will be converted from .IEL to a *.ELC, and it'll become another entry in the Library popup list the next time you open Combustion. BIG NOTE: the newer P-Illusion V3 libraries are NOT compatible with Combustion and will NOT work.
Lastly, if you desire more libraries or are looking for a specific particle effect, you should be aware that a company called CGPlanet offers a growing collection of pre-created particle libraries for sale. These are all categorized and indexed and can be easily bought, downloaded and added to your Combustion Libraries. Their libraries include such efefcts as the following: Aurora Borealis; Dust Devil; Magical Lights; Smoke; Electrical Vortex; Flame Thrower; Lights; UFO2; Warp Tunnel; Atomic Blast; Black Hole; Comets; Firey Cloud; Space Explosions; Star Ride; UFO; and Worm Hole. Visit : http://www.cgplanet.net/

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Have fun, and keep combustin' !

regards,

jack

alphatron

03-10-2004, 12:29 AM

Thanks very much Jack. I found Twixtor too slow to deal with efficiently in Combustion, and switched over to Retimer HD which I feel is faster and produces superior results. I'm going to give this one a whirl and see how the speed compares.

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